New Jersey man
charged in antigay bumper sticker incident

A northern New Jersey man faces hate-crime charges for putting an antigay bumper sticker on a car. The reason the incident is being treated as a crime is that the car wasn't his. Gina Genovese is the sole Democrat on the Long Hill township committee. On September 30 she reported to police that she'd found a bumper sticker on her Lexus SUV depicting a man, woman, and child holding hands, with a handwritten message protesting same-sex marriage. The Daily Record of Bergen County reports that crime scene investigators were able to lift a fingerprint off the back of the sticker and run it through the national database. Long Hill Police say the print belonged to George M. Dengler, who has been charged with harassment and bias intimidation in the case. Police chief Michael Peoples says investigators believe Dengler put the sticker on the SUV while it was parked in a municipal lot and Genovese was inside attending a township committee meeting. Dengler is scheduled to appear in court next Thursday. (Tim Curran, Sirius OutQ News)